updated 02:45 am EDT, Wed May 9, 2012

Many duplicate, spam, suspended accounts on list

Officials from Twitter are looking into what appears to be 50,000 email and password combinations posted to Pastebin earlier this week. After a brief analysis, the list consists of 20,000 duplicates, many suspended spam accounts, and unlinked user name and password combinations. No person or group has claimed responsibility for the leak.

Expert Adrian Lamo noted on Twitter that the data dump wasn't what he would characterize as normal. Twitter spokesman Robert Weeks told CNET that "We are currently looking into the situation. In the meantime, we have pushed out password resets to accounts that may have been affected. For those who are concerned that their account may have been compromised, we suggest resetting your passwords and more in our Help Center."

Brief Electronista evaluation of the data files found on Pastebin discovered an statistically-significant excess of Microsoft-associated email accounts versus other email providers. A large number of randomized passwords versus dictionary-findable words were also identified. Previous studies have noted the high prevalence of dictionary word passwords with no modifiers, so the high percentage of randomized passwords is notable.